[Bigger Piece on how the academic hierarchy works]

The following has not yet been verified. Please improve it by logging in and editing it. If you believe that is not sufficient to solve the problem, please discuss it with the community on the Talk Page. If you think that this article should be removed, please contact [email protected]

In other words, she has a myriad of achievements under her belt. So, it seems surprising that she didn’t have a full professorship upon receiving her Nobel prize. The answer is that she did not apply for full professorship.

But wait a second: how does one become a full professor? And is it strange that a Nobel laureate in physics not have a full professorship?

Let us answer the second question first: Yes, especially nowadays. In the past 20 years, there have been 56 nobel laureates in physics. Of them, 44 have professorships, they seem to receive them on average 10 years before they receive their Nobel, and more than one of them holds multiple professorships at the same time.

Zhores Alferov who was given an Honourary Professor award (Also, note: look into him)

Jack St. Clair Kilby, who was not a professor. Not even a PhD. Got a Master’s in 1950 on electrical engineering and worked on TI in 1958 designing those calculators every highschooler hates.

Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov. He worked for the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys instead of as a university professor.

John C. Mather, who is an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.

John L. Hall, who was a Fellow at JILA, formerly the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, and a Lecturer at the CU-Boulder Physics Department.

Donna Strickland – Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo.

Arthur Ashkin – PhD, but no professorship, worked at Bell Labs and not at a university.

Here are two people who are full professors in the University of Waterloo, in Strickland’s own physics and astronomy department: Dr. Kostadinka Bizheva and Dr. Melanie Campbell. Of them, Dr. Bizheva has a similar record to Dr. Strickland’s, while Dr. Campbell’s is honestly frightening in how impressive it is.

Frances Arnold

The Associate Professor

Changes in the makeup of the population of academics over the past few decades.

Full Professorship

We already outlined how one comes to become a full professor, but upon being one, what changes?

0-0-0-0-0-

–

After doing this, there is a note I must make: Why do so many nobel laureates have multiple synchronous professorships?

(Also, note to future editors, there is another Donna Strickland who teaches at the University of Missouri and is also an associate professor. She teaches English though. There is also a Donna Strickland that passed away at age 72. Also one about a Principal Product Marketing Manager at SAS. It’s a surprisingly common name)

Image information

We have no ads and no paywall. If you believe in collaboration to produce quality neutral journalism for everyone, it is important that you sign up to support our work financially. Every penny goes towards improving WikiTribune! Thanks, Jimmy Wales

WikiTribuneWikiTribuneOpen menuCloseSearchLikeBackNextOpen menuClose menuPlay videoRSS FeedShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on RedditFollow us on InstagramFollow us on YoutubeConnect with us on LinkedinConnect with us on DiscordEmail us